A guest essay by Phil Hayward on the Whaleoil blog should be compulsory reading for all Aucklanders. It pulls apart the sloppy thinking behind the ‘Compact City’ vision for Auckland of Len Brown and the skulduggery that goes on in Council to make sure that what Len wants Len gets via the Unitary Plan (UP).

What was unique about Auckland will be lost in the headlong rush to make Auckland look like every other city in the world.

Auckland Voters have a lot more re-thinking to do than they realise so far. “New media” has a valuable role to play in informing the public not just of politicians personal scandals that the MSM (main stream media) might not have covered, but of important policy issues on which the MSM are misinforming the public. It is extraordinary that in Auckland, a Unitary Plan has passed the “notification” stage (in September 2013) while afflicted with so many obvious flaws, and with bureaucratic input so obviously incompetent and ideologically-based.

The article is well argued with lots of supporting evidence and is worth reading in full, but I will skip to the conclusion.

Aucklanders have every reason to reject Len Brown’s policy platform as well as his personal behaviour. But changing the mayor is only half the story. Auckland’s bureaucracies need to be comprehensively cleansed of incompetents and fraudsters, and the reasons these people are committing such fraud need to be discovered and addressed. Potential reasons include: ideological agendas; self-interest (departmental empire-building, job security, perks, promotions); and outright corruption. With the “planning gain” captured by owners of rezoned land of all kinds being measured in as much as millions of dollars per acre, especially in and near the CBD, there is obviously considerable potential for corruption. Not to mention the effect on any one person in any position of power or influence, of owning so much as a single investment property themselves. It might be worth also finding out the reasons why the MSM abets this bureaucratic fraud, when they are meant to be public watchdogs. Is it ideological biases; editors owning investment properties; or major advertisers in the property and finance sectors exerting unscrupulous influence? Auckland needs the truth, and needs Mayoral and Council candidates to step up to the task of saving their city from unelected saboteurs who are currently running it by default; like Sir Humphrey Appleby only more destructive. If the mainstream media is not going to give the public the truth, it is up to “new media”. WOBH (Whaleoil) has shone in terms of coverage of individual scandals at the time each one became known, and of the Council’s deteriorating fiscal position; but it is time to dial up the heat and make a comprehensive “case for the prosecution”.

Needless to say myself, Faye, Don and Jim of the former local board made sure Waiheke was kept out of the Unitary Plan (UP) by not bowing to pressure to throw away the Hauraki Gulf Islands District Plan (HGIDP), now operative thank God.

Had we not stood our ground Waiheke would now be looking at a developers dream of intensification. No wonder developers like the Walden family fought so hard to stop the HGIDP in the Environment Court. Their own plans included an 80 house intensive development for their land bordering Trig Hill Rd.

Besotted by wanting to oppose everything simply for the sake of it, the likes of Christopher Wragge, members of the Waiheke Island Planning Group, Forest and Bird, Pita Rikys, et al held up the HGIDP for years and nearly caused intensification by default. Beware the meddling of well meaning idiots and fellow travellers.